[Freya-dæg] Shocktober Pt.1: Some Screaming Skullduggery

{The movie poster from The Screaming Skull, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

Well, it's October proper now, and so there are a few movies that I've scared up for the month that hosts Halloween that I've just got to check out. First up in the four part Shock-tober film fest is the 1958 fright-fest, The The Screaming Skull.

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Plot Summary

Eric Whitlock (John Hudson), now happily married to his second wife Jenni (Peggy Webber), returns to his estate after some years away.

Everything within it is just as it was left, and the gardener has been keeping the grounds as if Eric - or his late first wife Marian who tragically died near the property's pond - never left. But as strange things begin to distract Jenni and she starts to see and hear things that Eric assures her are not there it seems that the estate is not yet finished with sorrow.

Bumps in the night become real reasons for terror, but is Jenni truly seeing and hearing things as they are? Or is Eric right and there's nothing at all the matter in their freshly minted marriage?

When it comes to matters of creepy gardeners, strange noises, and bizarre appearances of skulls everywhere, nothing can be certain - even the cry of a peacock could be the sound of The Screaming Skull!

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The Good

For better or worse, this movie has one thing going for it: A 1950s car with seagull doors!

Neat props aside, The Screaming Skull definitely has its moments of mild fright. But what the movie does best is create atmosphere. The colonial estate on which the film is set already lends itself well to this, but the tension is also ratcheted up through Jenny's constant edginess.

Much like another ill-thought of movie from the middle of the 20th century - a little picture called Manos: The Hands of Fate - the best character in the movie are those who are on the sides.

The Reverend Edward Snow (Russ Conway) and his wife (Tony Johnson), are interesting, if static figures, but just as in Manos, the greatest character in the movie is Mickey (Alex Nicol), the estate's gardener (and the film's director). Just like Torgo, Mickey's motivations and personality are the most developed and worked through, and so likewise, he is always a curious figure to watch.

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The Bad

However, the big problem with The Screaming Skull is that it fails to establish real relationships between its characters. The one between Mickey and the memory of Marian is the best in the film, but even it is terribly thin and shallow. We're basically given a Catelyn Tully/Petyr Baelish situation (if I may be so bold as to jump genres), but nothing as complex develops from it.

Worst of all, though, the one relationship that the movie really needs to make us care about, that between Eric and Jenni, gets no development whatsoever. Eric mentions once (once!) that she's moneyed, and she gives no real indication as to why she's interested in the man.

Despite the insistence of the script, this is not a good show of a madly in love married couple. That most of their scenes come across as reads rather than actual conversation between any truly in love couple does nothing to help their case.

{"We need someone outside of the confusions of our love for each other."}

What's more, the characters of Jenny and Eric, again, those whom we should be made to care about the most, are pitiably underdeveloped. All we know about Eric is that he's been away from the estate for 3 years, he's re-married, and he must have some kind of job (right?).

To be fair, we do learn quite a bit about Jenny's past, but we don't get enough early on to really relate to her. Eric's under-development is disappointing, but with Jenny's downright terrible.

But why are relatable characters so important to horror movies?

Well, horror movies require characters that their viewers can relate to, since when those characters are in danger, or in tense situations, or scared, then we can feel those same emotions.

Jenny, as the new wife who is being introduced into the way of life that Eric is planning for, is the perfect audience proxy character. She, just as those watching, is being brought into a brand new scenario. But, because we're not able to really make a connection with her due to the mysteries of her background and attraction to Eric.

As a result, what is supposed to be a largely sympathetic genre becomes instead a plodding tense fest that comes across as comical rather than scary not because of the era's effects, but because without a character to see ourselves as or to empathize with, we the audience become objective observers, coldly removed from a movie whose genre requires emotional investment on at least some level.

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Judgment

The Screaming Skull and Manos: The Hands of Fate are definitely of the same ilk.

Both movies are low-budget, poorly executed horror movies that are just plain bad.

Yet, the difference between them is that Manos is so bad that it's good - it can show people the absolute worst way to make a movie in all of its aspects.

The Screaming Skull on the other hand is badly done, but lacks the main thing that redeems Manos: Interesting characters that have dynamic relationships and that are fascinating in their own right.

Because The Screaming Skull is missing such characters the house in which much of it happens is a perfect self-reflexive metaphor. The estate house is frightening in its own right (it is a horror movie after all), but absolutely empty - and therefore entirely uninteresting. What's more, aside from two throwaway lines, we're never given any clear reason for Eric's actions - unless he is, in fact, bound for the loony bin.

So, Freya, leave this one below as you fly over the field of fallen films. Oh, and don't get too close, you might fall into its bubble of boredom and tumble to the ground.

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Closing

Coming up tomorrow - Annotated Links #19. So be sure to watch for more wacky news and information!

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[Freya-dæg] The (Good) Samaritan

{The Samaritan's movie poster, found on IMDb.}

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

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Plot Summary

Foley (Samuel L. Jackson) has just finished his 25 years in the joint and he's eager to start fresh. He meets with his parole officer, gets himself a job - and reconnects with his old partner's son, Ethan (Luke Kirby).

But Foley's chance meeting with Ethan almost causes his undoing, as it introduces the fiery Iris (Ruth Negga) into his life and threatens to pull Foley back into the very world that he wants so dearly to escape.

But meeting Iris quickly becomes a great thing for Foley. The two become more and more intertwined as a couple. In fact they become so close that there are no secrets between them. Except, as Foley finds out from Ethan, one. It's a secret that could tear Foley and Iris apart and twist the knife that knowing the secret himself has thrust into Foley's heart.

Ethan uses this secret as leverage to bring Foley in for one more big score. But will Foley go along with it? Will he be able to keep Iris in the dark or will she be able to handle the terrible truth? Most importantly, even if forced once more into the world that he vowed to leave behind, can Foley emerge once more as The Samaritan?

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The Good

For a Canadian film, The Samaritan is a slick picture that weaves a wondrous atmosphere around its viewer. From the dank streets of Toronto to a moody, Peter-Gabriel-esque sound track, this movie is one that offers more than just an escape, it offers a rewarding journey through the darkest of places.

Samuel L. Jackson gives a much more muted performance than in most of his other movies, as his is a character who's more reflective than violent. But this works well with the other elements of the movie and really helps to sustain its atmosphere. Also, Luke Kirby plays a perfect slime ball, while Ruth Negga does well as an addled lost woman.

{Foley, confronted by Ethan's questions of why he killed his father.}

But slick production values and strong casting aside, this movie pulls out one of the few trumps in the noir genre: the Oldboy card.

The twist that Oldboy deploys in its narrative is more elaborately delivered, but the pared down version found in The Samaritan is incredibly effective. What's more, it also takes some extra time to give greater depth to the entanglement between characters. Further, this device is such a rarity in Western cinema that it comes as a welcome surprise.

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The Bad

At the same time, The Samaritan is not without its problems.

The pacing of Foley and Iris' relationship is too fast, for starters. Not that a guy who's just gotten out of prison wouldn't fall for a girl like Iris as quickly as he does, but rather there's very little chemistry between them until Foley takes the initiative.

This makes sense, since Foley plays as the world-weary and in-control ex-con all the way through, while Iris is very much caught up in the world of the pimp's fist: opening to dispense coke, and closing to dole out cruel slavery. This dynamic later becomes something more, as Foley strives to help Iris get herself straightened out, but their bumpy start can't be ignored.

The movie's initiating moment, the one that sets up Ethan's and Foley's motivation for the whole of the movie, is also questionable.

In this moment, Foley is faced with the choice of seeing his best friend and partner being killed before being killed himself, or killing that friend, taking the fall, and having to live through prison. The way that this moment is introduced and then developed over the course of the movie does nothing to show us why Foley chose to live rather than die a Roman death.

After all, when he comes out of prison everything has changed, everyone he meets from his old life says that what they did was "1000 years ago," and he has no connections on the outside whatsoever. We don't even see any reason for Foley to have killed Ethan's father aside from his own cowardice (or, in Ethan's words, "to save his sorry ass").

It could be argued that this is how we're supposed to regard Foley throughout the picture, but this doesn't jive with his actual character as we see him. Throughout the movie he's calm, collected, and entirely together - he knows exactly what he's doing, how to do it, and how to keep calm while doing it. His is not the shakey hand of the coward, but the steady one of the expert.

Maybe there was some pivotal, off-camera moment in prison that turned him from craven to maven, but we don't see it and this creates a distracting disconnect between his apparent motivation for saving himself rather than just dying with his friend. And since the moment in which Foley made this decision is what leads to the rest of the movie, the plot itself is undermined.

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Judgment

The Samaritan is a movie that very clearly explains its own lukewarm reception.

Samuel L. Jackson is famous for starring in movies that grab your attention, shake you for an hour and a half and then leave you reeling. Likewise, film noir is a genre known for characters and plots that seize your interest and sweep you around from situation to situation until things conclude in a twist of some sort. Combine these two together, and you rightfully expect a twisted thrill ride that delivers atmospheric, hard-boiled action.

However, this just isn't the case.

The thrills are there, as are the twists and the characters, but nothing necessarily grabs and holds you. The whole movie is better described as a film that very clearly proclaims "I'm noir! ...and I'll just be right over there, okay?"

To really appreciate this movie, you need to be willing to take an active role. Not so that you can follow its complexities, but becuase the movie's not going to do much holding for you. It's a movie to get lost in rather than to be lost in. And that is a very refreshing change from movies in the action/noir genre that try to bludgeon their viewers with madcap sprees.

So, Freya, find this one brooding in the Field of Fallen Films, and bring it up, for it's truly a one that deserves to be seen.

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Closing

Tomorrow, watch for Annotated Links #19, and on Sunday for a look back/look ahead entry.

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[Freya-dæg] Nicolas Cage Month Pt. 4: Seeking Justice Review

{Seeking Justice's movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

Introduction

We close off Nicolas Cage month with a movie very similar to the one with which we opened. Seeking Justice, though not film noir and not a movie featuring a terribly over-the-top Nicolas Cage, is strikingly similar to Deadfall in that it's plot also tries to be a complex of twists and deceptions.

Both of these movies were veritable flops (taking in $12,355,798 out of a $30 million budget and $18,369 out of a $10 million budget respectively), but let's see just what's so bad about Seeking Justice - and what's good about it.

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Plot Summary

Wil Gerard (Cage) is just another high school English teacher in the modern city of New Orleans. He's married to the musician Laura Gerard (January Jones), friends with his school's principal (Harold Perrineau), and an all-around good guy.

But then the unthinkable happens - his wife is brutally attacked and raped. A strange man (Guy Pearce) asks a shaken-up Wil if he wants to wreak vengeance on the criminal responsible for his wife's condition, and he says yes. The hit happens and Wil has his vengeance, but the man who offered it can now ask a favor from Wil whenever one is needed.

As the mild-mannered English teacher gets deeper and deeper into this network of vigilantism, will he be crushed by its ever-encroaching presence or will he come out as the only one who's truly Seeking Justice?

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The Good

Seeking Justice is definitely an action/thriller that runs very much by the book. But, it has rigorously highlighted some key parts of that book.

Most rigorously of all, perhaps, the movie does a great job of making the viewer despise its villain. The precise moment when he reveals himself for what he is comes fairly late into the movie, but not so late as to make his getting his comeuppance any less satisfying. This underlines the hatred stored up for the character throughout the film.

The movie's major twist is also amazing, though if you're familiar with Lost it might be less of a surprise, since Perrineau is at the twist's center.

Also to the movie's credit, though it plays by the book, it knows well enough how to keep an audience's attention even amidst its clichés. For example, it becomes clear that Wil is going to be blackmailed at one point, but how the blackmail plays out is quite ingenious.

The movie also uses what it establishes, namely the network of vigilantes, in an excellent way.

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The Bad

Yet, at the same time, Seeking Justice does little to keep its pacing even.

The first and third acts are fine, but things sag in the movie's middle. This sag is caused mostly by things becoming too convoluted - it becomes unclear just who is a part of the network that Wil stumbles into and who isn't, not to mention why this should continue to matter as much as it does.

While this convoluted storytelling is definitely a good way to show the character's confusion, it isn't useful when it lasts as long as it does and makes little effort to connect with the rest of the movie. The second act would be greatly helped by a line like: "That Simon guy is no good, we want to get him out - permanently." Instead of being given such a signpost though, things just remain unclear.

Although his English teacher cred is definitely restored by a scene late in the movie, all of the other scenes involving this aspect of Wil's character just aren't that great. Instances of him teaching especially seem only to be used to show aspects of the character but without any kind of subtlety.

Ultimately, the movie's ending also lacks subtlety, as loose ends aren't tied off so much as they are cauterized. Major details that should have been addressed for proper closure are entirely ignored. In particular, Wil isn't called in to clarify the circumstances of a death that turns out to be a suicide and not a murder.

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Judgment

Seeking Justice is a fine example of a movie that can really reach an audience. It's also an example of a movie that doesn't try to remain aloof from the audience in that characters are easy to relate to. Though, empathy and sympathy are generated more by their situations than characters' individual traits or personalities.

Nonetheless, it's a movie that presents a good use of the elements that it introduces, and that can get you empathizing with the characters and their plight - if you let it.

It's not a great one, but it's messiness can be excused. So, Freya, when next you swoop for one nobly worthy, also grab this worthy one from the field of fallen films.

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Closing

That's it for Nicolas Cage month, but don't miss next week's short fantasy tale, editorial, and the search for the good in a generally frowned upon flic. Plus, watch for Annotated Links #12 and #13.

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[Freya-dæg] All About The Last Airbender

{The Last Airbender's movie poster, found on Wikipedia.}

Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing

M. Night Shyamalan, a director best known for movies like The Sixth Sense and The Village should stick to what he knows, or at the least to doing what he does best: creating an engrossing plot that strings the audience along until they reach some crucial twist.

Not only is adaptation outside of his wheelhouse, so too are movies where his signature twist is missing. Put the two together, and, somehow, you get the live action adaptation of the animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Last Airbender

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Plot Summary

Based on the idea that each of the “books” referred to in the title cards of the animated series could be turned into a movie, The Last Airbender follows the plot of “Book One: Water.”

For those unfamiliar with the Nickelodeon show about a world where people can bend water, earth, fire, and air to their will, this section of the story introduces Katara (Nicola Peltz) and Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) of the Southern water tribe shortly before they discover Aang (Noah Ringer) frozen in a glacier with his sky bison. He winds up freed from the ice, and after a brief encounter with the reviled Fire Nation, the three of them set out to help Aang realize his potential as the Avatar, the one who holds the four elemental forces of the world in check.

Ultimately, Aang, Katara, and Sokka end up at the city of the Northern Water Tribe, so that Aang can master water bending, and also so that they can help to defend it from an upcoming Fire Nation assault. As General Jao (Aasif Mandvi) of the Fire Nation plots to kill the spirits of the moon and ocean, thus robbing the water tribe of its bending power, defeat looms over the last truly free city in the world and only our three heroes can help to avert it.

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The Good

As you might expect from a movie about a world where people can bend the elements to their will with movements that Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan would be proud of, the choreography in this movie is decent. And the effects are fairly well done. Whatever else may be said about it, it has no shortage of spectacle. Especially when the fire and the water fly in the final battle.

Also, and this was more a surprise than anything else, but Dev Patel does a good job of playing the brooding, exiled Fire Nation prince Zuko. His character is softened, but it's still really obvious that he's absolutely brimming with conflicting hatreds and loyalties and desires.

Aasif Mandvi's appearance was also a very pleasant surprise. He didn't play anything up for laughs, and a movie based on an animated series (other than Avatar: The Last Airbender) might not be expected to offer up the chance to show your dramatic chops, but he definitely hits it out of the park as General Jao.

{The Daily Show's Senior Hollywood Correspondent goes a little too deep undercover for his exposé on bad adaptations. Image from a screen capture}

Seychelle Gabriel also works well as Princess Yue of the Northern Water Tribe – she even puts some feeling into her lines.

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The Bad

Cool World is not a very good movie. However, having seen The Last Airbender, it seems as though the quotation used to introduce The Bad in it was used too soon.

The biggest problem with this movie is the absolutely bizarre pronunciations of names and things that are pronounced in entirely different ways in the animated show.

Where the series pronounces Aang as “(r)ANG,” and Sokka as “Sock-ah,” the director of the movie (Mr. M. Night himself) has them changed to “Ah-ng” and “So-ka.” At one point, a character even refers to the "Yang" in "Yin and Yang" as “Yah-ng.” So, first off, why not just follow the pronunciation that fans have become familiar with over the course of three television seasons?

The next biggest problem (a very close contender for the title) is that all of the character arcs that are presented throughout the show's many episodes are almost entirely shaved away to make sure that this movie is feature length. This is an understandable change, but, if The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask teaches one thing about building character, it's that it can be done in a limited space and a limited time.

Rather than trying to pack the movie with all of the side plots and diversions that the show presents so wonderfully, why not just have Aang, Katara, and Sokka interact with people in the Northern Water Tribe city as stand-ins for the characters they meet in the show? It'd even be possible to just move some of those characters into the city so that they could still be interacted with.

To be fair, the movie doesn't try to pack everything in, but it skips over so many key moments for character development that the characters are left to develop through dialog that's not only written so it conveys almost no subtlety but that's often delivered as if it's being read for the first time.

Dev Patel works well as Zuko, and Seychelle Gabriel does an alright job of playing Yue, but the actor that was cast as Sokka just doesn't seem to get it. In the show, Sokka is a goofball of an older brother who's always hatching plans and making schemes that have some hole or other in them. He isn't solely a comic relief character, but he often is the one that audiences are meant to laugh at – at least early in the series.

As the three travel together and their characters develop, Sokka does become more serious, but that seriousness is always undercut with a bad pun or a silly gag. Instead of this nuance, Jackson Rathbone plays Sokka as some kind of straight man who hardly ever smiles. And when he does – especially when Yue is telling him about how she died when she was born and is alive because the Moon Spirit gave her its life – it's really poorly timed.

{Maybe Rathbone's Sokka is off because his timing, the heart of comedy, is off. Image from a screen capture.}

Aang and Katara are a little bit better, but again, because we see them in so few situations compared to the show, they aren't as nuanced as they are in the original. Aang's Monkey-King-like energy and playfulness are replaced by a more sullen, “I-don't-wanna-be-the-Avatar-because-then-I-can't-have-a-family” nature, and Katara is, well, just Katara. By the end of the first book in the series, it was already clear that there was some chemistry between these two characters, but in the movie there's practically nothing to suggest this.

Mercifully, Zuko's absolutely mad sister Azula, is only shown briefly in only two scenes. But, these two scenes set her up as more of a giggly little girl than as the scheming, psychologically twisted monster that she is in the series.

And, to end on a minor detail, a running joke in the series is that everywhere Aang, Katara, and Sokka go, they wind up upsetting a man's cabbage cart. Even the new series Avatar: The Legend of Korra, includes a scene where a cabbage man is dispossessed of his cabbages.

It might be fan service, but it would at least show the fans that you care about something that they admire, Mr. M. Night. And, including the scene would also have assured people familiar with the series that you had actually watched it and not just written your script based on some sort of terribly truncated SparkNotes summary.

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Judgment

The Last Airbender is not the movie it could have been.

Now, it's unrealistic to expect any filmmaker to be able to condense 20 episodes of a television show (about 6 hours and 40 minutes) down into something that's less than two hours while retaining things like characters, a coherent story, and a fully realized world. But there are ways that such an adaptation could have been made to work.

The discovery of Aang could have happened during the opening credits. Then a voice over could give the background of the setting and what had happened up to x-point as the characters did something (maybe fly somewhere on Appa, or walk between villages with a group of people trailing them since Aang is, you know, the Avatar and all). From there, most of the movie could be based in the Northern Water Tribe city with flashbacks to fill any gaps, fully realized relationships with the city's inhabitants to develop characters, and simply more dialog that revealed the story in an organic way, rather than lines that even the actors seem to balk at from time to time.

Unfortunately, M. Night Shyamalan's adaptation was not so bold as to make this many changes. Instead, he seems to have taken a more scissor-happy approach, trimming away everything excess until only the bare outline of the first season of Avatar: The Last Airbender's plot remains.

Some of the actors were definitely well picked, and the spectacle that the movie offers is quite impressive. But the four elements of Patel, Gabriel, Mandvi, and spectacle alone aren't enough to save the world of water, earth, fire, and air.

Freya, feel free to shed a tear as you fly over this one, but do no more save let it remain.

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Closing

Check back here next week for more creative writing, an editorial on the newest news, and a hunt for the good in, and hopeful redemption of, another generally despised movie.

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[Freya-dæg] Johnny English Reborn Improved

{An example of Atkinson's Mr. Bean-esque mugging in Johnny English Reborn. Image from Pfangirl Through The Looking Glass.}

Introduction
Plot Summary
The Good
The Bad
Judgment
Closing





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Introduction

Johnny English Reborn is one of those movies that you hope is better than it's predecessor (especially given the 8 year span between them) and that gives you a performance like a trained monkey at a piano recital. The judgment on this one's going to be all hush hush until the very last minute.

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Plot Summary

The movie's plot follows from the ending of the first.

Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) has since become a real MI7 agent, but has lost his knighthood because of his failure on a major mission in Mozambique. However, because he gets the call from Pegasus (played by Gillian Anderson) to come out of suspension, he returns to the agency and takes on a mission involving the mysterious group "Vortex." Some slapstick gags, antics, and a Behavioral Psychologist love interest (Kate Sumner, played by Rosamund Pike) later, Johnny's the only one who can foil Vortex's plan to assassinate the Premier of China while he's meeting with the UK's Prime Minister in a high security Swedish fortress.

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The Good

Showing some of the true colors of a worthy sequel, the main character in this flick has changed. Johnny English is no longer the bumbling new agent who has no clue whatsoever, now he's the bumbling experienced agent who has every clue necessary but still has his penchant for mixing things up fully running the show.

This character growth might sound like a minor improvement, but the growth helps to deflect a lot of the predictable jokes that may otherwise have come up, and it allows Atkinson to deliver many of the comedic moments in a style that's similar to the one he use for Mr. Bean.

Particularly in the section of the movie where he's fleeing capture on a souped-up motorized wheelchair. The section takes many of the conventions of a regular chase (the interruption, the surprise appearance) and uses them to comedic effect. Dave White of movies.com described the film as "a reasonably steady stream of closed-mouth chuckles over comic incidents," but the wheelchair scene turned those chuckles into guffaws.

Speaking of other reviewers - another major criticism of the movie, lobbed by Lou Lumenick of the New York Post, is that the movie puts way too much emphasis on jokes that appeal to "...children who laugh at the sight of men being repeatedly kicked in the groin."

Maybe watching the Love Guru can forever change your perspective on cheap gags, but Johnny English Reborn really doesn't use crotch-hit gags that often. In fact, the writer seems to be wary enough of them to veer left of a few potential instances of the gag throughout the film.

However predictable the movie may be in some ways, it mostly failed the major predictability test: whether or not Johnny cross dresses at any point in the film ala Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

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The Bad

Overall, Johnny English Reborn's major problem is with its supporting cast of characters. Many of them are acceptable because they have such small roles, but Kate, the love interest, and Agent One are two dimensional at best.

In fact, the entire romance sub-plot of the movie appears to have been added in a quick and dirty kind of way. It's obvious that Kate's interest in Johnny starts off as clinical (as she herself points out) but we never really see it become emotional, it's as if the integral we're-a-couple-now scene is missing from the movie.

Agent One, aka Simon Ambrose, (Dominic West) is similarly thin in character, being simply the ideal agent who's more than he seems.

The other supporting cast member worth mentioning is English's sidekick, Colin Tucker (Daniel Kaluuya). Tucker's character is actually given some loose back story, and so he's something of a 2.5 dimensional character, but there simply isn't enough done with him to make him substantially different from Bough (pronounced "Boff") in the first movie, except, just as is the case with English, he's an actual agent rather than an office worker.

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Judgment

Johnny English Reborn isn't worthy of the extra word added to the title. "Reborn" is simply pushing things too far. "Improved" would've worked nicely and is much more accurate.

The improvements in some of the characters, in the use and execution of the jokes and gags, and in the character of Johnny himself suggest that the writers for this one (screenplay: Hamish McColl; story: William Davies) are an improvement over the writers (Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, and William Davies) for the last movie , but unless a movie by the name of Johnny English Renewed comes out in 2020 you shouldn't expect too much from this series.

That said, Johnny English Reborn is an improvement over the original in terms of comedy, but it steps backwards in terms of characters - a lot of this movie seems to be here simply because the standard elements of a spy movie are necessary for the comedic premise. Yet, the major thrust of that premise, Johnny English himself, has been improved, and so, though narrowly, this one gets a save.

Freya, swoop down and save this film from the likes of Gigli and The Love Guru.

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Closing

Next week watch this blog for the conclusion to my four part series on wind power in Ontario, an article on the newest news, and a search for the good in London Boulevard.

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[Moon-dæg] Finishing Off on Freelance Writing

Introduction
Musings
On Organization
The Teaching Alternative
Closing

{If only he could speak from 1893. Image from public-domain.zorger.com}

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Introduction

This is the final piece in my four part series on freelance writing. It's also written in a more freewheeling style, though a logical order is still loosely imposed. You've been warned.

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Musings

Freelance Writing is it? The sort of thing that requires a quick mind on the page, and in the checkbook. It'll keep you sharp, but it can tear you apart, too. Academics have GoogleScholar to figure out how many people reference their research, but to think of how many people could see your writing if you had hundreds of articles, stories, and clips circulating about. That just adds to the rush.

Teaching can impact a room, but the written word can impact an audience severed by space, and even by time.

Writing in general seems to have more of an impact than teaching - though teaching might have the potential for a deeper impact.

Freelance writing doesn't need to be something you go broke for, either. It's just about keeping up on the jobs. And with stuff like content farms out there now - forget about it. If you can take the pittance they pay when times are tight, then those times will be loosened just enough. Of course, that's if you've got the time - or will.

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On Organization

Signing up for all of those sites takes a lot of organization, too. You need to keep all of that account information straight, and then you need to figure out how best to keep them all checked and responded to.

Yeah, being a freelance writer is maybe more possible now than ever, but it also seems to require more organization, too. Makes you much more of an entrepreneur when the whole damn internet could use your article. Not to mention the few offline publications still afloat and hungry for words.

The offline ones (and those "e-zines") pay better, too. Then again, with the old procedure of query, draft, submit, you deserve extra. Not like write, submit, pass, get paid. Gee-zus.

Anyway, all that organization's needed up front. Being a freelance writer isn't like becoming a cop or a getting into med school program. You need to plan your specific moves much more carefully if you want to be successful right out of the cage.

You need to know how much you'll charge, how much you can do in an hour, what sort of work you want to concentrate on, how many hours you can work a week, what sorts of outlets you'll use to look for work in the first place. So much more organization, and all up front. None of this dicking around with training and learning in a place separate from the real thing, only to be faced with something almost entirely alien when you finally get to the job itself.

No, as a freelance writer you know up front what you're getting into or you just don't make it. Some might muddle their way in, but they're the ones who learn quick. Real quick.

Quick learners get ahead as freelance writers, too. They know just what it is they need to do for a client, they can see it in their job offer, smell it in the proposal or description. Then it's no problem to just go with it, and run along with all that cash flow pushing you on.

Yeah.

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The Teaching Alternative

Back to that teaching alternative - if you know enough to write things, you know enough to teach things, right? - it's not entirely a sure thing anymore. Anywhere local, anyway. Even according to the recent Transition to Teaching Report, only 21% of graduates say they've got full-on teaching work within their first year after graduating (in Ontario). Shit. That doesn't look good. But writing, that's always gonna be around. As long as you get a good start, find your stride, it'll just keep going.

Y'know, more than anything, writing's more liberating, too. Teacher's can keep their summers off, freelance writers are doing what they love and what they love's not work to them at all. But teachers college is like a band-aid being used in the place of gauze and surgical tape, a temporary solution that might help in the long run, but that just doesn't stand up to the potential in writing.

Still, I plan to accept one of the offers I've gotten for teachers college and to see where writing takes me in the interim. Writing and teaching might be like feuding brothers in my mind, but they're still kin.

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Closing

Watch this space for Wednesday's piece on the newest news, and check back Friday for a review of 2011's I Am Number Four.

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[Freya-dæg] Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol

Ah, Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol. The Imax really made those gadgets shine - but maybe that shine hid something a little less glittery.

Well, being otherwise standard thriller fare, the gadgets definitely do mask a lot. But, for all of its cold war tone and everything that went with that it was kind of neat. Characters were all over the place it seemed, but I'll get to that in a minute. So. The good.

First, cool tech. Really cool tech, actually. The screens, and that magnet/metal suit plus the magnetic rover. That was just really really cool. Yeah. Definitely.

And the surprises that were built into the plot from the beginning were also pleasantly surprising. The fact that the wife was alive rather than the evil master mind or ultimately the hostage with the big bad, that was good. Quite good - though the fact that she seems to be around but...they can't be seen together? They can't be all husband and wife because she's supposed to be dead? It seems like it's kind of meaningless.

I mean, they're both alive and there's some kind of...muddled reason for them not being able to be together it seems. That much makes sense, but what's the point. They're both alive, but then it's just like a permanent distance relationship. Nice, but with no final pay off. Because, as one in a distance relationship that seems to be a major point of it. One day, we will be together.

Anyway, the other good thing, surprise wise, is that the guy who is essentially a mole isn't working for the enemy but rather was there when the lead's wife was allegedly killed. That was pretty nicely done, and did make some good sense. Yeah.

In the end, the only other good thing was that not *all* the Russians were evil. The arms dealer was kinda good and bad. And the agent tagging along after Ethan Hunt was good, all around good, actually. So that was nice, for something that appeals to cold war sensibilities.

Since that's really what the movie was all about - cold war sensibilities. US versus Russia. Nukes. Only one man and his small team stand between the world and total destruction. So. Yeah. Absolutely cold-war. They even refer to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Something that most younger people probably don't even know about.

But as per the rest of the movie? It was standard thriller fare. The Characters. The Characters. Oh, lord, the characters. They really needed to be more fleshed out. So. there's the lead, Ethan Hunt, who is the immaculate hero, never scarred, always healing super quickly. He can be excused because that's a fixture of the genre. Though I will say that they should make body armour out of whatever is on Ethan Hunt's face instead of human skin - that stuff can take some punishment and just never break apart or bruise. Geez.

But the others? Simon Pegg's character - uh...Laughy McComicRelief...? - Also can be excused because he was basically there as the primary laugh source.

But the woman. Jane Carter. She saw her lover die in her arms and believed that the female assassin (Sabine Moreau) arranged for this to happen. Did she think that the woman knew that she was the other one on the mission? The field commander? Carter is never really shown to have any real reason to think so.

Moreau (the female assassin) doesn't really give any reason for getting back at the lead woman at all when there is a confrontation either. So there's no reason that's clear for the lead woman to think that the assassin left the lady spy's lover near dead to make her suffer - she probably just did it for the sake of giving him a torturous death.

Further, that Carter's anger is directed to the guy that she's supposed to seduce makes no sense whatsoever. Why has she been able to hold it back for so long? Why does she lose control around him?

I agree that the loss of a loved one would make anyone angry but if she's professional enough to keep cool up until the point where she needs to turn on the sexy, then why not be able to keep cool while doing so? This makes no sense to me. If anything, Carter should have snapped at Hunt, with whom she supposedly has a thing by the end of the movie, she could project those feelings onto him as her affection switches to him. After all, at the end there's a look and a smile, and then suddenly, oh wait - his wife's still alive. This hinted-at affection also makes the whole wife-alive-thing seem completely senseless.

But the other guy. The other agent, William Brandt, his character was less imperfect, but his fearlessness before the reveal of his past and then his doubt and hesitancy after the fact makes little sense.

He is this cool character up until the revelation that he was involved with Hunt and the death of his wife in the past. But then, after this revelation, he becomes hesitant and sarcastic - he gets relegated to second comic relief guy. He and Pegg work together for the jokes from that point onwards and that's it. So as a non-agent he's all super cool because of the mystery, and then after he reveals himself as an agent the mystery is lost and the character follows suit. This is what ultimately damns this picture for me.

The movie's combination of cool tech, the fact that the writer(s) avoided using the "dead wife appears as villain/hostage" cliche (in spite of mishandling the rest of her presence here), and the presence of some good Russians to avoid painting them too broadly are all redeeming features. And Simon Pegg is good as the comic relief, but he's so much more than that he can do so much more (see Shaun of the Dead for example). And even though it's hard to write women for action movies, Carter seems to be paranoid and have anger issues - but not as part of the plot, as part of some bad writing. And then there's the other agent, Brandt, who just turns around completely as a character for the last act of the movie.

So, Freya, rest assured that even the Imax can't save this one. Leave it where it lay. Or rather, since 93% of critics and 86% of audience members liked it on Rotten Tomatoes, see what you can do about getting it back to the body heaps on Midgard.